Slips of my tongue

The recent spate of celebrity deaths have taken some amazing and talented people away from us.

Ed McMahon, sidekick and Publisher’s Clearing House spokesman, was part of my parent’s Tonight Show, which I shunned because my 14-year-old, punk-ass self, completely consumed with the sardonic humour of SCTV and Saturday Night Live, thought it was passé. (It was only when I bought a DVD box set of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for my dad and watched it with him that I later recognized Carson’s genius as a funnyman. But that’s another story.)

Farrah Fawcett, pin up queen and television star, was the girl you wished you were – for the generation of women before me. When my friends and I role-played Charlie’s Angels, I always fought to be Kelly Garrett. For me, Jaclyn Smith was the girl I wished I was. I think it was the brunette thing.

As for Michael Jackson, well, as far as I’m concerned, he died after Thriller.

The power of radio has diminished for me in recent years, but in my teens, twenties and early thirties, my world was consumed by CFNY. The station saw me through unrequited crushes and all-night study sessions. It introduced me to bands that I never heard before and opened up within me a deep interest in music that has grown exponentially. Before iTunes and internet radio, CFNY was it. And then Martin Streek came along and it got even better.

If I wasn’t at the Phoenix dancing my ass off underneath the booth where Streek performed his magic, you would find me at home, lying on my bed, headphones on, listening to Streek’s voice as he was broadcasting “LIVE TO AIR”. I haven’t listened to the station much since it re-branded itself as “The Edge”, so I was unaware that Streek had been fired in May, which is another example of how far the station has strayed from being “the spirit of radio”. Whether his dismissal had anything to do with his death, we may never know.

The important thing for me is this: Martin Streek introduced me to a lot of great music and, for that, he will always have my deepest appreciation.